Our political beliefs are largely defined by what makes us angriest. And the most common anger is over freeloaders cheating the system.

In our society, this is typically targeted at what’s right in front of us, the person buying junk off food stamps, the lazy person who is able bodied but unwilling to work.

We are confronted with hard proof of this element in our world on a regular basis. There’s no denying it. Plenty of people want to take and take. They have no desire to contribute. To feel anger at this fact is justifiable and inevitable. On the other hand, it’s necessary to look honestly at ourselves and eliminate our own possible shortcomings in this regard. Ironically, lots of hate toward “takers” comes from other “takers.”

I see the widespread righteous fury to this aspect of society and I get it. I frequently feel it. But my anger comes from the left, too. Yes, that horrible word around here. This is rooted in hard emotion. I witnessed the awful decline of my grandmother over 14 years. She lost everything, her finances, her mind, her connection to family. It was heartbreaking. In those days, I came to this conclusion: if the taxes from my paycheck aren’t going to her and people like her, what good is this country? It is a visceral anger in me, very much alive and scorching hot, when I think of her and others like her being lumped in politically with “the takers.”

But it inevitably happens when we talk about “entitlements,” because we lump true need with ill-gotten gain. Actually, we tend to focus first on the cheaters, not the truly needy. Our first motivation in addressing “entitlements” always seems to be the negative, not the positive of truly helping the suffering. Like many others, I want cheating and sorry attitudes dealt with, but this can’t overshadow those who really can’t speak up for themselves.

As I said, our political beliefs are generally tied to some emotional experience in our lives. That’s obviously true for me. I expect it is for you too.

Perhaps you share a moment with me. The 2008 stock market crash still resonates emotionally with me. I am still enraged. That moment fundamentally changed my outlook on what constitutes a “taker.” I realized that it’s not just the poor end of society that cheats the system. Naturally, there’s a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism of supreme wealth as jealousy or class warfare. There’s no way to point toward real problems without that blowback. It’s just the natural counter jab.

But we all watched a massive Ponzi scheme perpetrated on the nation over the past dozen years. And we’ve yet to recover — or even deal appropriately with those who created it. Bernie Madoff is the poster boy for Wall Street bad boys. But the entire system was actually crippled by a deliberate lie, which was absolutely criminal. We witnessed mortgage fraud on a scale that has been deemed “too big to prosecute.” Sketchy mortgages were passed out like candy to unqualified recipients — who, yes, share in the blame. Those mortgages were bundled together, then fraudulently graded as fine and dandy by ratings agencies, who knew better. Those bundled mortgages were then traded over and over again, with investors believing the lie that their investment was sound. In this setup, the homeowners were simply coal for this enormous fire of Wall Street trading. When homeowners were foreclosed on, there was frequently no mortgage paperwork, because the mortgages had been bundled and traded so often. So, a number of banks actually hired people at $10 an hour to forge documents needed for foreclosure proceedings. This was the focus of a 60-Minutes segment. I sat in disbelief and couldn’t believe more people didn’t react to this. Big, big fraud! Imagine the forging going the other way, with homeowners fabricating documents. That would surely result in prosecution.

This terrible picture was possible because our nation’s financial sector bought off our legislators and had the post-Great Depression rules safeguarding us from such things lifted. Once those rules were eliminated, banks could gamble with our money and create new — and fraudulent — ways to generate value out of thin air. That’s why we saw this enormous boom time. But the new value wasn’t real. It was a lie. And that’s why we saw this massive crash, because people caught up to the lie. When the crash hit, all the folks who created this awful lie got bailed out by Washington, because if they didn’t, we’d all go to the bank and no one would get their money. It would be a financial Armageddon situation, hurting all of us.

Later, the banks and other industries who lobbied for the initial changes that got us in such terrible trouble managed to win the reform fight by not having their elaborate card games eliminated. They’re still trading in truly risky ways, which have absolutely nothing to do with tangible value. Consequently, we’re seeing another Wall Street boom time, which is being fueled by the Federal Reserve pouring more and more cash into the pipes, which is another form of massive value manipulation, something that will eventually turn very toxic.

All that said, I’m angry as all get out. I don’t have any trust in either party to address the rigged game in any substantive way. I don’t think enough people actually see the picture clearly enough to force political action, which would require bipartisan rage, something that seems beyond our collective capabilities. And I think the banks and the financial sector will once again land us in a wasteland, requiring taxpayers to feel the pain.

No doubt, when that happens, I expect most people will once again focus entirely on the poor end of the taker spectrum — that welfare dude in front of you with steaks in the grocery line. That’s so plain to see. And yes, it’s terribly annoying.

But the taker picture is much, much bigger than that. And that dude is far down the taker totem pole.

Yes; bears repeating. But folks around here don't want to see it because they can't literally see it themselves. The welfare folks are not the problem. In fact, the root problem when followed all the way out is globalism, which is inevitable, so we have to find a way to adjust. We can't isolate in this new world. As bad as it is, I like to think that there are a whole lot of people on the planet who finally have access to a better life because of the opportunities extended from first world countries like the USA (in spite of the wrongs happening in places like Bangladesh). We will be better off only when they have caught up to us and that's only fair.

You are exactly right Zach.
A timeless tactic to remove the spotlight
from the bigger players who would prefer it not be known they were feeding from the trough.
Good article . That is more fact than opinion I believe .

Excellent insight, Mr. Mitcham! Will the citizens of Madison County listen (or even read)? Will they quit falling for the psychological tricks employed by big business, Madison Avenue, politicians and Wall Street? Or are there more suckers born in Madison County than elsewhere? It's a complex and deceitful world that requires lots of extra effort to grasp fully. If it's too much, too hard or beyond one's grasp, that's okay as long as people don't grab onto something, anything, to take some sort of stand because they can't really understand. It's better to just acknowledge that it's too complex and stay in a no-man's-land sort of mode while others work it out rather than becoming a puppet of the more powerful elements. That will make them less powerful and be a back-handed source of power for the person who refuses to fall for the tricks just for the sake of looking like they know everything.

Most of the older generation don't even get what is actually happening to our Country because of those with a globalist agenda .
Wages are falling while inflation is on the rise.
It would seem as if making more people poor in this country is the design . Not lifting people out of poverty in other parts of the world.
It due to the poor public school system that is run by big government.
It's not just Madison County Virgina . It is nation wide from Pre-K all the way up to the so called best ivy league colleges .
A good example is Obama . Suppose to have been a 10 year constitutional professor.
Laughable at best. He also attended Harvard.
If that's the best we can get from the supposed best . We are done.
I think an 8th grade drop out would be better than those who got schooled rather than educated.

“Communications that are made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election) and clearly identify a candidate or political party." [IRS Regulation IR-2013-92]

In other words, this rule would empower the IRS to muzzle us right at the time people are most interested in learning about their elected officials’ positions!

I am letting you know about HR 3865, the Stop Targeting Beliefs by the IRS Act, which would halt this rule’s implementation.

Tomorrow, the House will vote on HR 3865.

That’s why it is vital you call Congress immediately and urge your representative to vote for HR 3865.

You can reach your representative at:

Rep. Doug Collins: (202) 225-9893

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